The modern age, an era where human beings have attained an uneasy control over the natural world, is a direct threat to many of the species with which we share this planet. If in coming years,
pollution or anthropogenic climate change erases scenes such as this, a school of goatfish serenely swimming above large colonies of Porites lobata, from the earth, not only will we lose one of the most fascinatingly beautiful ecosystems on the planet,
we will also lose one of our most important tools for understanding how our planet works. Both beauty and information are increasingly valuable and scarce commodities in this rapidly changing world of ours, and we can ill afford to lose either.

Photo Credits:
Jerry Wellington
Department of Biology, University of Houston